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Innova IRV will promote a technology centre for applied research and technological innovation that will specialise in the areas of microelectronics, digital technologies and circular economy.
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The Department of Economic Transformation, Málaga City Council, Mayoral, the Sando Foundation, and the Myramar Group are the founding partners of INNOVA IRV.
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26 entities and institutions join this foundation based on public-private collaboration.
The Mayor of Málaga, Francisco de la Torre, and the Regional Minister for Economic Transformation, Industry, Knowledge and Universities, Rogelio Velasco, presented the Ricardo Valle Innovation Institute Foundation (INNOVA IRV), which was created with the aim of becoming a centre for applied research and innovation, focused on microelectronics, digital technologies and the circular economy.
The founders of the Ricardo Valle Institute of Innovation Foundation, INNOVA IRV, are the Regional Ministry of Economic Transformation, Industry, Knowledge and Universities, Málaga City Council, Mayoral, Sando Foundation and Myramar Group.
Together with the Mayor of Málaga and the Regional Minister, the rector of the University of Málaga, José Ángel Narváez, the president of INNOVA IRV, Ezequiel Navarro, the director of Málaga TechPark, Felipe Romera, and the president of Ametic, Pedro Mier, took part in the event.
According to Rogelio Velasco, “INNOVA IRV is a new solid commitment to innovation and knowledge transfer in our region”. This action, he pointed out, “is part of the economic transformation policy promoted by the Andalusian government, in which public-private collaboration is fundamental”. The Andalusian economic head wanted to emphasise that “INNOVA IRV was created with the aim of becoming a centre of reference in the advancement of technologies that are highly demanded by the market, in advanced research with high potential, technologies that, in addition to bringing benefits to society, will help to modernise the Andalusian productive fabric, improving competitiveness, the international projection of our companies, attracting investment and generating new business initiatives”.
For his part, the Mayor of Málaga, Francisco de la Torre, thanked Mayoral, Sando and Myramar for their involvement in the creation of this foundation, as well as all the collaborating entities and companies. He stressed that the launch of this project is another step in the city’s long history linked to innovation, which began almost two decades ago with its inclusion as one of the cornerstones of strategic planning. De la Torre recalled that Málaga is a benchmark city as a demonstrator of national and international innovative projects and highlighted the value of INNOVA IRV as “the administration must be a lever of change for economic transformation and encourage local companies to continue specialising in sectors that allow them to compete on a global scale, attract talent and generate skilled employment”. He also stressed that “the formula of public-private collaboration allows us to walk alongside the business fabric and join forces in the same direction”. De la Torre was convinced of the opportunities that this foundation will offer not only to the city, but also to Andalusia and Spain due to its openness to the whole country.
The president of the Foundation, Ezequiel Navarro, stressed that “the Foundation is an instrument for the collaboration of companies and the enhancement of the innovation ecosystem”. “The key is to connect with the market with innovations that create value and employment”, he stressed.
Among the collaborating entities participating in this project are Accenture, Premo, Dekra, Google, Aeorum, Tupl, Endesa, Tinamica, Simon, Top Digital, Málaga TechPark, Ametic, Orange, Ericsson, Vodafone, Esesa, Aertec, Bic Euronova, Famadesa, Unicaja, Universidad de Málaga, Universidad de Sevilla, Universidad de Granada, Junta de Andalucía, Ayuntamiento de Málaga and Diputación de Málaga.
The project is also supported by Ametic, the employers’ association representing the digital technology industry sector in Spain, which counts among its members companies of all sizes, such as large global IT, telecommunications, electronics, services and digital content companies, leading companies in digital transformation, as well as associations of a key sector for employment and competitiveness, with a significant impact on national GDP.
The creation of this foundation aims to strengthen the collaboration of technology companies with the knowledge provided by the University of Málaga, together with the University of Granada and the University of Seville.
What is INNOVA IRV all about?
The Ricardo Valle Institute of Innovation Foundation is a private foundation that was created as an opportunity to structure the innovation ecosystem with the definition of a new model in the relationship and development of projects between companies and the University. A new transformation model to develop and integrate in the long term the joint efforts of technological innovation based on knowledge, as well as its valorisation and as a paradigm for Andalusia to lead the economic transformation through deep-tech, digitalisation and industry.
Among the objectives of INNOVA IRV are to generate a sustained tractor effect on the Spanish economy, to undertake in depth the green and digital transformation, to contribute to the creation of high added value jobs and to maximise the impact of R&D&I capabilities developed by the centre, reaching 930 highly qualified direct jobs and 2,084 indirect jobs in 2026.
It is a technology centre for applied research and technological innovation, oriented towards three linked areas with high potential for the development and market application of the following technologies: Microelectronics and, more specifically, microprocessors; Digital Technologies, which include Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Connected Vehicle, 5G+; and Digital Technologies applied to Industry 4.0, Aerospace Systems, Digital Health and Circular Economy.
INNOVA IRV’s action plan
INNOVA IRV’s activities are focused on attracting, designing, managing, developing and executing innovation, research and technological development projects and programmes in the different technologies in which it will work, as detailed below.
Microelectronics Project:
The initial objective is to develop and bring to market 5nM microprocessors with RISC-V architecture, leveraging on the research base already carried out by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, and resulting in a low-cost, high processing power, low power consumption chip, open for all European developers to use without prohibitive IP barriers.
5G+ project:
In the area of 5G+ networks, the INNOVA IRV innovation ecosystem aims to equip the ecosystem with an open 5G innovation platform (among the best in Europe) to develop, prototype, test and showcase new products and services around cellular IoT as a cornerstone for the digitisation of the industry.
Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence projects:
Through the cybersecurity area, INNOVA IRV’s companies, start-ups and research centres will implement platforms that will contribute to protecting digital environments.
Among the priority objectives in this area, INNOVA IRV will contribute to increasing the supply of national services and products, as well as the specialisation of professionals in cutting-edge aspects of R&D&I in the sector, with the ultimate goal of boosting the existing business ecosystem around the Centre while increasing the presence of the Spanish cybersecurity industry in Europe.
Artificial Intelligence (AI):
Innova IRV’s business ecosystem will enable the integration of industrial R&D&I assets to achieve new developments related to prediction, clustering, and reinforced and deep learning, all of which are cross-cutting elements that support simulation, optimisation and anomaly detection procedures in computational architectures in a particular way.
Moreover, the process of digitalisation, innovation and incorporation of AI within the INNOVA IRV value chain will create a major opportunity for the transformation and improvement of the current production model.
Connected Vehicle Project:
The mobility of the future is going to integrate many technologies, such as those associated with electric cars, assisted driving and, in the not so distant future, autonomous vehicles.
In parallel, connectivity enables the development of a whole new range of services, which are gradually being introduced, ranging from infotainment, navigation aids, monitoring the status and position of the vehicle and driving, and traffic management (as part of “Smart cities”).
The development of the connected vehicle, together with advances in advanced driver assistance systems, all sensor technology (cameras, radar, ultrasound sensors, lidar, etc.), are inexorably leading to the autonomous vehicle.
All these new advances, which will lead to greater safety, a reduction in the number of accidents, a reduction in energy consumption and mobility efficiency, have a very important challenge: to be resistant to attacks, especially cyber-attacks.
Industry 4.0:
This plan aims to provide industry with production capacity for strategic components and products:
Implementation of smart factory for the production of components for sustainable mobility (electric/hybrid vehicle) under the philosophy of open innovation, including circular economy for the milling and reuse of ferrites, energy efficiency (for 0 carbon footprint) by solar photovoltaic production on facade and roofs, energy recovery from furnaces and climatic chambers, collaborative robotics, intralogistics and nanotechnology development.
It will have a direct impact not only on the companies participating in the project and their production capacity, scalability and competitiveness, but also on the developers of robotics and AI applications.
Aerospace Systems:
The aerospace sector finds in INNOVA IRV the ecosystem of state-of-the-art digital and green technologies to be applied in products and solutions that transform and develop the national aeronautical and space industry with international projection.
Digital Health:
Aims to “Humanise the patient’s journey through the healthcare system using technology as a facilitator” through a Macroproject of the Regional University Hospital of Málaga that comprises:
– The generation of a “Health Innovation Dialogue”.
– The promotion of “health needs catalogues”.
– The development of innovative digital socio-health strategies in health.
– The incorporation of innovative applications to improve quality of life.
Circular Economy:
Innovation is a key element in achieving the transition to a Circular Economy. Knowledge transfer and patents are an opportunity given its incipient development.
The paradigm shift needs to decouple economic growth from the use of natural resources, and the circular economy industry will enable the use of less energy, water and materials.
The Circular Economy is a driver for innovation. The need for platforms to share, rationalise and establish indicators to measure progress from linear to circular. Identifying solutions and new business models to make cities more sustainable.
The science park aspires to be a benchmark space in Circular Economy, an ideal environment for experimenting with innovations and technologies, where the entities present can test standards, products and business models with an innovative and circular component.
Ricardo Valle
The Innovation Centre, Ricardo Valle Institute of Innovation (INNOVA IRV) is named after Ricardo Valle, Doctor in Telecommunications Engineering from Málaga, who was the founder of the Escuela Técnica Superior de Telecomunicaciones de Barcelona and an expert in electromagnetism. Thus, he was considered a mind ahead of his time who had the vision to articulate the training in the most prestigious universities in the world, such as MIT or Carnegie Mellon of the most brilliant students of Telecommunications Engineering in Spain. His legacy lives on in the training of some of the most illustrious academics, entrepreneurs, managers and authorities in the world of technology through the creation of mechanisms and institutions that endure. A backbone history of this project, people, technology, progress and international ambition.
The Ricardo Valle Innovation Institute (INNOVA IRV) project aims to bring world-class technological innovation to Spanish SMEs with a model inspired by the German Fraunhofer Institute, to gain competitiveness, scale, attract investment and promote the creation of new technology-based companies that aims to reach 1500 million euros of public-private investment with an increase in the value of exports worth 3,000 million and 900 direct jobs and more than 3,000 indirect jobs in related companies.
The initiative aims to create a network of innovation nodes, the first of which will be in Málaga, focusing on three areas: the first of these, microelectronics, a critical field for the whole of Spanish industry, as demonstrated by the consequences of the shortage of microcontrollers that has come to paralyse industries such as the automotive industry. The other two will be digital technologies (5G, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and connected vehicles) and applied digital technologies (industry 4.0, aerospace systems and digital health).
This project, which has been articulated as a private-public partnership consortium, aims to support the reindustrialisation, growth and strengthening of companies, ensuring their future competitiveness through disruptive innovation, digitalisation and sustainability.